Writing by Alana I. Capria

May 21, 2012

(The ax novel was finished on Saturday. I started my new novel today, which takes place in a hotel. Unfortunately, I’ve been typing so much lately that I hurt my wrist and am now sporting a lovely little support brace to keep my hand from falling off. The liabilities of being a writer. I’m also in the midst of planning a zombie novel. Not because I want to write a zombie novel but because I need to. I have to own the fear.)

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(((apology from the

ghost in room 314))) i cannot see straight. walls move around me, bleached plaster dusting the ground and spreading into the sky but i cannot see past the whiteness. [do you think your bedroom obsessions are healthy, rusted green carpeting asks and fibers reach towards the steam-cleaned beds, sheets wrapped around mattresses like mental restraints.] i would like a restraint. one for my tongue. one for the skin kept tucked beneath the bed. and maybe another for the pillows. feathery fat rustles too much and i cannot scrape the sounds away. they move like stomach muscles. the walls move again. they shake slightly. they twist towards the ceilings and away from the doors. they twist into the bathtub and dissolve into the closet. i close my eyes. i lean towards the hallway and those corridors, stretched apart like arterial tubing, doors creaking open and slamming closed, punctuate the narrow expanses, and they beat softly, then fall silent, before beating again. MRS. SILK walks these hallways. she rests her hands on the walls and i lick her palms through the plaster. i slide into the carpet nails and rub against her feet. i beg for forgiveness and MRS. SILK steps on me. she grinds her heels into my face. she scrapes her toes across my cheeks and i am ruined. and i am left on the carpeting as a foggy smear wearing dusty clothing, a piece of cloth covering my abdomen, another rag against my chest, and a string placed carefully across my mouth. then i hum as MRS. SILK fades away, her long dresses rustling against the carpeting as she strolls back and forth, her skeleton keys hanging from her hips, clanging together and chiming like iron bells. iron bells, cast iron bells. the bells comprised my spleen. the bells i kept tucked into my eyes until she scraped them out. MRS. SILK likes to scrape. she likes to carve. she tilts her head to the left and rattles her jaws. she heaves her head to the right and screams from her tongue. [forgive me, i shout into her ears. forgive me. i did everything you asked me. but i did them wrong. i read the bible for days instead of hours. you said to open the door but i ate it. and then, when i was supposed to wrap ropes around my throat and yank tightly, i lacquered the skin with soap and took a bath. i’m sorry and i know i did everything wrong but please forgive me. please, don’t leave me in the room. it’s so quiet. and so white. i can’t take the alabaster. i can’t stand all that bleached porcelain.] she pulls away and i sink into the carpeting again. i lie with my head pressed against the center of an ugly rose, spikes instead of thorns rising from the center, and the tapestry rose unfurls its stringy petals and rubs them over my face. [what are you, the rose moans. what are you? i want to eat you. but you don’t have a taste. so what do you come out of? the walls? the ceiling? are you my child? i don’t remember having a child. but sometimes, my leaves split and things come out and they say they are my children and so i believe them.] the rose pulls away, strings tucking back into the carpeting, plaiting new vines across the center fabric. i touch the wall. i sit on the bed and watch the ceiling. sometimes, when i am bad, when i think too much and touch MRS. SILK where i should never touch her, my wrists bleed and the blood drips onto the floor and i cry softly. that is when i want to lift an ax onto my shoulders and bash it against everything. but i cannot. but i can’t lift anything so heavy. i can’t lift anything so solid. i keep my bleeding hands against my lap and the blood soaks into my thighs and the blood coats my legs and sometimes, the blood drips onto the bed and then i feel worse and want to eat an ax instead of throw it. but what can i do with an ax when i am just a ghost? make more ghosts? turn MRS. SILK into a ghost so that she has to listen to my tongue? i can’t do that. i love MRS. SILK. she is the most beautiful hotel woman in the world. i want to lick her up. i want to cling to her. but i sit on my bloody hands and outside, far in the hallway, the doors open and shut, open and shut, open and shut while i whisper, [forgive me, forgive me, forgive me…]